Summary:
Valley Ghosts #1
Jason Thomas had always been obsessed with the ghost stories he'd watched on television from the time he was a kid. He'd always dreamed of visiting those haunted places, and playing amateur ghost hunters with his best friend Wade. As they grew older, Jason's fascination with ghosts grew as well, and he'd drag Wade along to different haunted houses or hotels, always hoping to see an actual ghost.
Wade Rivers loved spending time with Jason, even if it meant he'd have to endure another creepy, supposedly haunted location. Friends since they were kids, and always inseparable, Wade's feelings for Jason deepened from friendship into something more. Unfortunately, so did his fear of the places Jason wanted to explore.
The chance to spend a weekend alone in a famous haunted house was too much for Jason to resist, and almost too much for Wade to endure. He knew going to the deserted house was everything Jason had ever dreamed of, so Wade tried to put his fears aside. But when paranormal things start to happen, admitting to Jason how he feels suddenly isn't the scariest thing Wade will encounter.
Two Fates by Kari Gregg
Summary:
Jamie and Ian recognized they were destined mates as teenagers. Heedless of their pack’s objections, they loved fully and recklessly. When Ian perished in a senseless accident a decade later, Jamie’s grief was so consuming he almost died too, but in the years since, Jamie learned to cope. Though his heart is empty, he finds purpose in teaching shifter craft to pack whelps and carving bone to offer for trade. His is a quiet life, his peace hard-won. The pack seer’s alarming prophecy at Jamie’s birth assured Jamie he would love again, but what he shared with Ian...That magic only happens once.
Kenneth—pack newcomer and presumptive alpha—disagrees. Instinct led him to Kentucky after Ian’s death tore Jamie’s world apart. While Kenneth would’ve done anything to spare Jamie the agony of Ian’s loss, Kenneth will also never deny what drove him to Burnt Fork in the first place: Jamie is his destined mate.
Can one man have two fates? The pack lore Jamie teaches suggests that is possible, but Jamie alone must decide if finding the courage to love again is a blessing...or his curse.
Summary:
The legendary ghosts of Christmas—Past, Present, and Future—failed to cure Evan Eazer of his misanthropy. He hates people, loves conflict, and has a swearing habit to boot. Phil, the Ghost of Imaginary Time couldn’t be more thrilled. Finally, it’s his turn to get off the bench and into the game. He’s sure he can cure Evan and earn back his place in the giving-people-Christmas-epiphanies rotation.
Evan won’t reform easy. He’s immune to Phil’s many charms and seems content to live out the rest of his life bitter and alone. Worse, Phil’s time on the bench has left him ignorant to the ways of humanity. He struggles to navigate the new world and find his place within it let alone help someone else find his way back on the right path.
But one thing Phil does understand about the strange world in which he finds himself is Evan and his pain. He knows what it’s like to be misunderstood by pretty much everyone. But can he get Evan to understand him, too?
I've been wanting to read an M/M story reminescent of Dickens' A Christmas Carol for years now and although this isn't exactly what Just in Time is, there are elements of it involved. Ever wonder what would happen to Scrooge if the Ghosts of Christmas failed to show him the true meaning of the holiday? Well, Just in Time explores that case and the Ghost of Imaginary Time is sent in, even if he has to push to get the chance.
I'm really not going to speak too much to the plot of this holiday short other than I found it to be quite ingenious. A lovely blend of classic and originality. Phil the Ghost of Imaginary Time is probably way too chipper considering the task before him as well as the outcome the last time he was sent in but you gotta love his gung-ho spirit. Personally, my gung-ho would have turned to get-up-and-outta-here about five minutes after meeting Evan the man who beat the Ghosts of Christmas, but not Phil he doesn't give up so easily.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are some dark moments that Phil faces and he begins to waver but never truly gives up. Does he succeed where the previous ghosts failed? For that you have to read Just in Time for yourself but you can probably guess where the characters end up but as so often, the meat-and-potatoes of this holiday tale is not in the destination but the journey getting there. Trust me, this is not one you want to miss.
Summary:
Is it better to risk it all… or never know what could have been?
After surviving an abusive childhood, Vulcan remade himself upon arriving in Los Angeles, California. He became a blacksmith for the paranormal community and strives to earn the respect of the vampire covens and werewolf packs that call LA home. He also prevents the pain of loss by keeping everyone at arm’s length.
But he never planned on meeting a former Roman soldier by the name of Marcus Cassius Vespillo. Something sparks between them and turns into a friendship he never considered possible. He can’t deny his intense attraction to the intelligent, courteous, ancient vampire. And it scares him.
Though Vulcan is wary of seeking more with Cassius, an attack leaves him at death’s door and forces him to reexamine his priorities. But Cassius has his own secret, one that promises tragedy and loss. And if that wasn’t enough, a slayer arrives in the States, one with a bloody connection to Cassius… and Vulcan himself.
Summary:
Elements of Dragonis #1
Rillian Mascini is one of the most knowledgeable mages in the world. Spending his days and sometimes nights with his nose in a book has taught him magic and histories that few care to remember. He has a passion for dragons that pulls him to learn all he can about them, including their language. He is one of the last people left alive who can speak to the magnificent beasts.
Conwyn D'Aver is squad leader of the Dragon Riders. He will do whatever it takes to protect the dragons and people he has given his oath to serve. Nothing is more important, and when Neela, his personal dragon, is attacked, Conwyn is out for blood. He vows to find the threat and defeat it.
When an old spell book is found that gives a person the power to control all dragons, Conwyn will do anything he can to keep it from getting into the wrong hands, even if that means teaming up with the bookish Rillian to find a way to overcome the evil enemies who seek to gain the power.
Together with the dragons, the two men must find a way to protect everything they both love, but while doing so, they risk losing their own hearts to each other. As their enemies seek to destroy them, they learn that sometimes it takes love and trust to defeat the things we fear the most.
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Random Paranormal Tales of 2019
Two Fates by Kari Gregg
Chapter One
Jamie knifed soundlessly through the woods on two legs rather than four. Heart thudding in excitement and fear that his escape might be cut short, he didn’t take chances. He’d left most of the pack at his parents’ den in the forest behind him. They’d stop him if they knew he’d slipped away. They’d already moved heaven and earth to keep him from Ian. They’d track Jamie less readily in his human skin, though. He watched his step to avoid rustling leaves or snapping stray twigs. Now that he’d entered the towering rock and stony juts of granite along the border with Bitter Creek, at least the ground was too stark and sterile to crackle underfoot.
Pulse pounding in his ears, Jamie peered through the shadows of craggy mountainside. He paused to sniff the air though Ian almost certainly had retreated into his human skin to evade the pack as well.
Ian had to be close. Jamie’s nerves wouldn’t jitter as wildly if he wasn’t.
Minding shards of stone that carpeted the pass between Burnt Fork and Bitter Creek, Jamie pushed forward. His muscles burned as the ground sloped stubbornly up.
His best friend, confidant…his everything had to be nearby. Ian had fled to this patch of unforgiving rock since they were boys, any time he needed freedom from the pressures of the pack. Jamie had run there, too. That their parents would have tanned both their backsides for breaching the border with Bitter Creek had hardly mattered. The other pack hadn’t attacked or punished them for playing in the rocks, had they? The rugged pass was populated by vipers and a big cat or two that frightened away game. No one else came here. Which was why, when Jamie had overhead his mother speaking of Ian’s disappearance after they’d been separated, Jamie knew exactly where to meet him.
Days apart had stretched one into another with the weight and crushing emptiness of lifetimes. Jamie had rarely been without Ian, his best friend never far from his side since they’d been pups. How could their parents be so cruel?
Jamie’s hands trembled as he hauled himself up a cluster of boulders. If Ian wasn’t hiding among the rocks, Jamie didn’t know what he’d do. Continue searching. Keep hoping. He’d die before he returned to his parents’ den alone and defeated. A future without Ian’s laughter was that unthinkable.
He nearly jolted out of his bones when a tall shadow sprang from a ledge high above him, the figure landing in a loose crouch inches ahead of Jamie on the trail. Joy lit him up as his frantic gaze took in a familiar dark head, the broad shoulders he knew well bared of a shirt, those long-muscled legs—”Ian!”
“What are you doing here?” He caught Jamie against him when Jamie shot toward him. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I had to find you.” Jamie grinned at Ian’s stunned eyes. “As soon as I realized what was happening.”
“The ripening.” Ian’s lush lips tightened. He glared at Jamie. “You weren’t supposed to answer by ripening too.”
The bottom fell out of Jamie’s stomach. “You—” When his breath caught, freezing the words in his mouth, he shook his head and tried again. “You don’t want me?”
“Want you? Of course, I want you.” Lifting a shaky hand to cradle Jamie’s head in his palm, Ian shuddered. “Why do you think I ran? Your scent on them alone was driving me crazy.”
Jamie soaked up the affection in Ian’s caress, comforted by that if not Ian’s reply. “But why? Why did they separate us? Why did you let them?”
Ian’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re too young.”
“Bullshit.” Foul temper stirring, Jamie jerked away, though not far. His wounded pride won only scant inches. Neither he nor Ian would be able to tolerate even a small distance between them after having been denied touch for days. Not once they each smelled the other’s sweat…and arousal. “If my body ripened in response to yours, I’m mature enough to mate.” Jamie scowled at Ian. “Besides, I’m all of what? Five hours younger than you?”
“Months.” Ian’s mouth quirked. “Five months.” As if he couldn’t stand not holding him close, Ian yanked Jamie against him. “We are both too young then. The earliest mating this pack has seen in a generation.”
“That didn’t stop my mother. Or Da.” Who had mated at fifteen. At least, at sixteen, he and Ian were older than his parents when they’d mated. “Why are you being difficult?”
“It was different for them.” Ian rested his cheek on Jamie’s shoulder. “There are extenuating circumstances for us.”
Jamie stiffened, dread balling his gut. “My mother was wrong.”
“She’s never wrong.”
Jamie looked into Ian’s eyes—sad and sparking with the same fear Jamie had lived with since he sensed his body ripening for his mate. “My heart beat like a war drum before I saw you because your scent is overwhelming,” Jamie said. “Not because you weren’t careful. You were, but I’m attuned to you now. I could track you for miles.” Jamie grabbed Ian’s wrist and spread Ian’s hand, palm down and fingers splayed, over the center of Jamie’s chest. “I’m shaking. You are too. You feel it as fiercely as I do.”
“I’m no alpha wolf.” Ian stared at his hand, fingers curling next to the nub of Jamie’s pert nipple, but he didn’t rip that hand away. “I’m not the mate our seer saw for you.”
The pain of that, the truth in it, shook Jamie to his core, but he stroked Ian’s forearm. “The quickening doesn’t lie. We’ve known we would be together since we were small because the Goddess showed us that we belong to each other. Our physical ripening only confirmed what we’ve felt since we were young.” Fierce wonder and joy flooded him. “We are destined to mate.”
Ian leaned in, pressing against Jamie, both of their hands trapped between them. “Do you think this isn’t killing me? That I don’t want—” His shoulders jerked, a startled but desperate laugh tearing from him. “Everything! I want everything and I want it with you.” He skated a kiss over Jamie’s temple. “I’ve loved you since the moment you were born.”
“Every minute of every hour of every day,” Jamie vowed, wallowing in this as he never could have before. Not while the pack seer—his mother—had sworn Jamie would mate with the next alpha. He wasn’t allowed to have these feelings for Ian because, according to prophecy, Jamie was fated for another. “Don’t you see? We can be together now. You ripened and my wolf answered by rising within me. You sensed it first, but without you these past days, my ripening intensified. None can deny it, not even my mother: we are fated.”
“I knew it since we were boys. No ripening need ever tell me what I felt plainly in my bones.” Ian rubbed his cheek over Jamie’s. “My destiny is you,” he said, voice breaking. “It’s always been you.”
Grief shredded Jamie, the pain still fresh and bleeding. “Then why?” he asked around the knot of hurt lodged in his throat. “Why did you run? Why let them separate us?”
“Doesn’t matter anymore.” Ian freed his trapped hands only to wrap his arms around Jamie who sighed blissfully at the press of Ian’s skin against his own. “I’m not strong enough to let you go again.” Ian’s beloved dark eyes deepened like the shadowy corners of this forbidding and forbidden mountain pass. “Come with me?”
“Anywhere,” Jamie answered and meant it.
Ian didn’t lead him far. Jamie knew he wouldn’t. He’d explored the narrow paths made from jutting stone alongside Ian since they were boys. They both knew the way. Their sanctuary wasn’t a cave. These hills had none, the rock dense and impenetrable. Instead, boulders and shards of granite assembled in tumbling formations that left tunnel-like gaps and hidden enclosures. Ian and Jamie had claimed one of these crevices as their own years ago, furtively dragging a tattered blanket and other supplies as they could. Not food. They couldn’t risk attracting the mountain cats that hunted the high peaks, but they enjoyed all the other comforts boys who had grown to young men could desire, including wood for the tiny campfire Ian immediately set to light. A sheet of rock had fallen in one corner of the cramped space to provide crude shelter and a storage area protected by the elements for the few items they’d secreted there, but otherwise, the reds and yellows of the setting sun painted the sky above them. As boys, the rock walls had felt spacious, a luxury, but neither Jamie nor Ian had grown small or runty. Even without trying, they rubbed shoulders these days.
“The smoke will dissipate in the rocks,” Ian said, jabbing at the kindling with a stick. “No one on either side of the border will notice us.”
That Ian mentioned the risk of discovery that the fire represented, which they’d known was safe since they were both ten, told Jamie that Ian was as nervous as he was. Maybe more. The man he’d loved these many years still smiled into the campfire, his rangy body coiled in a bunch of lean muscle and golden skin, but his shoulders squared, tension defining his strong legs and torso. Jamie licked his lips, anticipation humming through him, but he still turned to fumble with the threadbare quilt that would cushion their mating den, nonplussed for a moment to realize his mother had provided their bed by discarding the precious though worn fabric many, many summers ago.
He jumped at Ian’s grip on his arm, which ended Jamie’s skittish fussing. “We don’t have to do anything.” Ian had circled the fire while Jamie had been distracted and stood behind Jamie now, Ian’s breath hot on Jamie’s neck. “If we ripened for each other once under the sway of the moon, we’ll ripen again for the next full moon.”
“We may never get another chance.” Jamie quivered. “They’ll part us if we don’t mate.” He stared at their makeshift bed. “Anything to fulfill their cursed prophecy.”
“The prophecy is yours, not theirs.” Ian’s grasp transitioned from holding Jamie fast to a caress that heated Jamie’s blood. Ian’s fingers traced the pulse throbbing at Jamie’s wrist. “And it’s no curse.”
“Isn’t it?” Jamie swallowed around the lump in his throat, his wild fear and uncertainty gnawing at him with razor-sharp teeth despite the sweet allure of Ian’s touch. “How could you still want me, knowing…” He trailed off, unable to voice the betrayal his mother’s prediction had implied.
Ian released Jamie, only to envelop him in strong arms and nudge him around to face him. “No, Jamie. It’s not a curse.” When Jamie buried his nose in the crook of Ian’s neck, Ian lifted a hand to nudge Jamie’s chin and Jamie’s anxious gaze rose to meet Ian’s. The steadfast resolve that glittered in Ian’s stare melted Jamie’s trepidation. “What the seer saw for you is a blessing. I know you’ll be all right, no matter what.”
Jamie had no such assurances. “But Ian—”
“Do you love me?”
Everything Jamie knew of love, Ian had taught him and before the night was over, Ian and Jamie both would learn still more. “I’ve loved you so long, I know nothing else. I never want to.”
One corner of Ian’s sly mouth tipped up. Enough for Jamie’s stomach to flip because, together since pups, he could read his friend like a book. Ian’s helpless moue reflected Ian’s grim acceptance that Jamie wouldn’t be allowed the luxury of knowing only the love of a single mate, but before Jamie could form his instant protest, Ian angled his jaw and brought their mouths together.
Jamie trembled anew.
Glorious. Ian’s kiss amazed Jamie, the softness of lips Jamie had only dreamed of sampling a dizzy wonder to him. Ian didn’t open his mouth. Though Jamie welcomed him, Ian didn’t slide his tongue inside as Jamie needed. Still, Jamie tasted salt and copper, the game upon which Ian had feasted in his absence from the pack’s guard. His scent had intoxicated Jamie since Ian’s ripening had begun, earthy sweat mixed with the tang of fresh pine that surrounded his family’s den and cornflower that thrived in abundance throughout Burnt Fork. More than that, though. He smelled of spices Jamie had never sniffed before that made him yearn. The wafting savor of Ian had maddened him before, when only traces of Ian’s scent had clung to other pack members. This close? Jamie was enthralled by him. He steeped his senses recklessly and fully in the fragrance of his mate while Ian frustratingly gentled him with this, their first kiss.
Jamie growled.
Ian chuckled. “Patience.”
“I want you.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry to prove our parents wrong.” Ian nipped at Jamie’s tingling lower lip. “We’ll only seal the bond once. I need to…” He bit down harder, the small jab of pain wringing a moan from Jamie. “…wallow in you. In us.”
“I wasn’t thinking of our parents or the pack.” Jamie’s senses zinged riotously at the brush of their lips. “I wasn’t thinking at all.”
“Good.” Ian lapped at Jamie’s mouth, setting Jamie on fire with arousal and consuming need. Ian dragged his fingertips up the bumps of Jamie’s spine. When Jamie trembled, Ian returned to tormenting Jamie’s mouth, his tongue tasting Jamie’s lips and his sharp teeth making him sensitive. Jamie ached. “Perfect.”
Maybe. What Ian did to him certainly enraptured him, as though his best friend had found in their days apart some raw and feral magic in the rocky crags to bewitch and bewilder him. Jamie needed more. “Kiss me?”
“I am.” Smiling, Ian slid his tongue inside the eager welcome of Jamie’s mouth, anyway. Jamie felt the slow dance of Ian’s possession from the soles of his feet to the tips of his hair, into the marrow of his bones. “Say it,” Ian ordered him, then kissed Jamie into silence as though Ian couldn’t resist the slide of their twining tongues, either. “Say it,” he tried again, his breath coming faster.
Jamie shot his fingers into Ian’s hair, urging his mouth closer. “I want you,” he complained when Ian refused him.
“I want you too, more than anything.” Ian groaned at Jamie’s answering snarl of desire. “Tell me. I need to hear it.”
Realization finally dawned inside Jamie and his tugging fingers gentled. Rather than demanding, Jamie soothed. Because Ian, deep down, was as scared as Jamie was. Jamie couldn’t stop the flood of tenderness that filled him for his mate, didn’t even try. “I love you, Ian.” As soon as he gave Ian what he’d asked, tension poured from Ian’s body, flush against Jamie’s, in a rush of loosening muscle and helpless shivers. “My heart is yours. My body is yours. Into your care, I give everything I am and ever will be.”
“As I receive, I gift unto you,” Ian responded. Jamie felt Ian’s heart, crashing violently against his ribcage, pounding against Jamie’s skin. “Forever, my love.”
Jamie fingered Ian’s hair, dark as sin, rich and silky. The words of the vow fell from his lips with unsurprising ease. “Forever, my life and the work of my hands.”
Ian shook, his grasp on Jamie like iron bands. “Forever, my spirit.”
“By the fruit of our bodies, we two become one,” they recited in unison, Jamie staring into Ian’s wide unblinking eyes. “This, I pledge as my eternal troth.”
They were just words. Ancient promises, but only words nonetheless. Jamie’s mother and Mack, their pack trainer, had repeatedly drilled into each pup and maturing whelp that the words meant nothing without the quickening that identified mates and the physical ripening that proved the blessing of the Goddess. The vow was meaningless without the pure intent of their hearts. Pack elders like his mother swore there was no magic in the words themselves.
They were wrong.
Every wonder and dazzling perplexity of the power held in check by the wolf inside Jamie screamed to urgent attention. His hearing sharpened, the riot of sounds from the scritching crawl of insects across gritty rock to birdsong in the woods beyond the pass a ringing clamor in his ears. The dimming light of the setting sun brightened with an explosion of color and only now could Jamie see and appreciate flecks of secret obsidian in the midnight of Ian’s eyes. Scent, too, swamped him, Ian’s smell but also his own, the two scents mixing until neither was distinguishable independent of the other.
Words were the oldest magic.
As was touch.
Wherever Jamie pressed against Ian tingled as senses dormant within Jamie awakened to greet his mate. His blood seemed to flow hotter but oddly thicker in his veins. The tickle of Ian’s chest hair beaded Jamie’s nipples. Even the blending of their sweat was an enchanting bouquet to him. “Ian?”
Chest heaving, Ian scraped his cheek across Jamie’s, nuzzling him in dazed but affectionate awe. “I feel it too.”
A trill of fear sprinted through Jamie the fraction of a second his heartbeat took to synchronize with Ian’s, with his mate’s. Then it was done. He sensed Ian’s joy as readily as his own, shared his astonishment. The love that had unfurled in Jamie as he’d ripened for his mate flowed into Ian and returned, carrying the promise of Ian’s love for him as well. The vow hadn’t lied. Together, they were stronger and steadier.
Their mating hadn’t required the loss of virginity and spilling semen, nor the exchange of bites. Jamie craved Ian inside him more than ever, longed for his mate’s teeth in his shoulder or mayhap his nape. That wasn’t strictly necessary, though. Their vow alone had united them. They were one.
Because Ian was as intimate in his heart and mind as Jamie’s own soul, burning wet gathered in Jamie’s eyes. His horror, anticipatory pain, and grief strengthened his grip on Ian who was and had always been the center of his world. “What are we going to do?” Jamie asked when he could breathe again.
The fire crackled quietly behind Ian. The distant birds twittered, as though already joining in their future sorrow.
Ian pushed Jamie down to the worn blanket of their mating bed, settling his hips between Jamie’s spread thighs. He braced on his elbows above Jamie and smiled at him. “What will we do? Love each other.” Ian bent down. His kiss rocked Jamie, the chaotic tumult of what Ian had guessed drowning in the beauty of what they created together. Ian’s devotion, his ardor and adoration of Jamie was a balm to Jamie’s wounded heart, but Ian also inflamed him. The silky hardness of Ian’s cock settling against Jamie’s groin stirred him, reigniting the passion that terrified grief could not tear asunder, not when Ian was warm and alive in Jamie’s arms, not while Ian was still Jamie’s to treasure. “Love me,” Ian said, grinding his hips into Jamie’s. Their cocks brushed and Jamie gritted his teeth, though he could not smother his moan. “Just love me.”
“Forever,” Jamie swore and arched his back to thrust his hips too, pleased when Ian groaned out his pleasure and need.
“Today,” Ian corrected on a harsh pant. “I may not have tomorrow. Love me today.”
“For as long as I can.”
Even as they writhed together, Ian pulling Jamie’s orgasm from him—the first of many—and spilling across Jamie’s stomach, before either of them had the presence of mind to exchange bites marking them as mates, and later, after Ian had thrust inside Jamie and Ian had accepted Jamie into his body too, even then, Jamie knew it wouldn’t be enough.
They’d mated with an intensity that could never be denied as anything less than fate, no matter the doomed foolishness of their families and the pack that had struggled to keep them apart.
For Ian, though, the clock ticked.
Just in Time by Jacqueline Rohrbach
Chapter One
The stage was set for Evan to have a life-changing epiphany. Smoke drifted across the graveyard, tangling itself around the crumbling tombstones. Most of the markers had faded through the years. Evan could make out the occasional Smith, or maybe that was only his mind filling in the blanks by putting common names over eroded canvases.
He bent next to the nearest one and wiped his hand across the bumpy surface. A coat of fine, almost silky, white powder clung to his fingers afterward. He’d known he’d get that result with no clear answers to show for the mess. Still, he was annoyed when he stood and cleaned off the dust using the untucked side of his shirt. Life was mostly like that for him. He knew what was going to happen before it did, but it didn’t stop him from feeling disappointed.
“Okay, get on with it, Johnny Bones for Fingers,” he told the newest ghost to visit him that night. There’d been two before him: the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas Present. Fed up with their nagging criticisms, and going on very little sleep, he snapped, “Make your bloody point. I need to shit and this place fucking sucks.”
There was a long pause before the Ghost of Christmas Past said, “And this lonely grave is yours, Evan,” in his deepest, scariest voice. His bony fingers wiggled above the exposed plot.
“Smooth recovery,” Evan said and shrugged.
“You died alone. No one to mourn you.”
Evan shrugged again. “Sounds about right.”
“You were unloved.”
“It’s a cruel world.”
“Even your family scorned you.”
“Right back at them.” Except for his mom, Evan amended silently. At one point, he would have put his sister on that list, but she’d shown herself to be as materialistic and heartless as their other siblings after their mother died.
“This is your last warning!” Past’s ominous voice boomed. The echo of it reverberated in Evan’s stomach, morphing his bowels into an uncomfortable churning sludge. No matter how ridiculous, the future was always scary. But it didn’t change his mind or heart.
“Tell you what, I’ll get cremated,” Evan said. “Putting that in my living will as soon as you dump me back off at my bedroom.”
Puffs of black smoke coiled around the robed figure. The ghost vanished along with the archetypical cemetery. The familiar surroundings of his bedroom and the musky scent of himself greeted Evan when he blinked open his eyes.
Evan got up from the bed. Although he was only in his early twenties, he had old bones. He swore he felt his back creak in protest. A slit of sunlight peeked through the curtains, cutting a peephole into his life. Evan drew them tightly together until he and the rest of the world felt like two separate things.
He didn’t need anyone. Not in the past, not in the present, not in the future.
“That guy is an irredeemable wanker,” The Ghost of Christmas Present griped.
“I’ve met serial-killing clowns I’d like to spend more time with,” The Ghost of Christmas Past agreed.
“The world is a darker, desolate place with him dwelling in its recesses. He festers like a tooth with an abscess, rotted beneath the glossy enamel.”
“Cut the emo shit, Future. Just say he’s a damn wanker,” Past said.
Future sniffled at Past’s slight and drew a dark hood up around his face to sulk. Through it, he mumbled, “Philistines. No talent for drama.”
The Ghost of Imaginary Time listened to the other ghosts quibble about the human, some delightful sounding chap named Evan Ezear. They’d been tasked to cure him of his misanthropy. Imaginary had been on the bench since he could remember, waiting for his turn to charm someone into re-embracing humanity. It sounded like this fellow might be his ticket back into the big game.
“Guys, maybe I can give it a crack?”
Present scoffed. “What are you going to do, Imaginary? You don’t understand people and people don’t understand you. Perhaps you could confuse him until he reforms?”
The Ghost of Imaginary Time loved the absurdity of the statement and embraced it close to his chest, holding it dear. Grinning, he cocked his eyebrow and said, “Maybe.”
“Well, you’ve never worked,” Present said. “No one has ever understood your gimmick. What is it, anyway?”
Imaginary wanted to say, I teach them to live with you three assholes, but he wanted to get his way more, so he plastered a smile on his face. “Embrace who you are. Understand that you know nothing!”
“Don’t you remember what happened to the last poor chap?” Future asked.
Imaginary did remember. “The last guy had a meltdown. Which was sort of like an epiphany…” Imaginary stuck one finger up in the air as if to hold up his tenuous argument.
“He ended up in an asylum,” Past reminded him. Not meanly, only matter-of-fact.
“Where he had several more epiphanies,” Imaginary said.
“Because you blew his mind to shit,” Past retorted. “To utter fucking shit. Ka-blooey.”
Behind Past, the other two ghosts nodded in agreement. Always an asshole, Present went the additional step of giving Imaginary’s supposed stupidity a slow blink and a pointed lip smack.
“Well, he talks funny,” Imaginary said, jabbing his thumb toward Future. “Like the Ghost of Christmas Thesaurus, amiright? What human can even figure out what he’s getting at? He always ends up pointing at their sad-looking grave in some hackneyed cemetery he conjured from a Dicken’s novel. The world is more modern now, Future. There are automatic sprinklers. The guy with the overgrown weeds and open graves isn’t in business anymore.”
“Scurrilous!” Future bellowed and banged his bony hands on the table. The result was more of a clatter, but Imaginary reacted as though the gesture had its intended effect and recoiled. Future loved to grandstand and playing along could grease the wheels.
“Don’t be a wanker,” Past said. “We’re all the same here.”
“My bad. You’re right,” Imaginary said. To Future, he added, “Hey, I’m sorry, buddy. You run a good game.”
Future sniffled in his practiced dignified way. “I say there’s no harm in giving it a shot. We can at least let Imaginary endeavor to transform this cur’s heart into something unblemished.”
Imaginary beamed. “Thanks!” He turned to Present and said, “Come on, buddy, give me a shot.”
Present flipped a dismissive hand in the air and said, “Fine. Whatever. Tell you what, I’ll even give you until Christmas. Just don’t send him to the loony bin.”
Imaginary tried to conceal his excitement. After several moments of flapping his hands and screaming, “Oh my god, Oh my god, finally, oh my god,” he took a deep breath and said, “Okay, what’s his deal, Past?”
“He just hates people.”
“That’s it? He doesn’t have some tragic backstory?”
“Well, his mother died of cancer.”
“That’s something!” Imaginary said, making a mental note.
“Everyone’s mother dies,” Past said. “Most people don’t become bitter pricks about it.”
“True. Anything else?”
Past thought for a moment, then held up his index finger when something came to him. “He had a lot of crazy friends who always had strange issues that needed solving. For example, some guy once put three weasels into Evan’s bathtub.”
“What for?”
“You know, I couldn’t really figure it out. I think his friend just might have been an asshole.”
Sometimes the past wasn’t as complex as people wanted to make it, so Imaginary accepted the answer without pause.
In that space of time, Present asked, “What are you going to call yourself? Your name immediately invites a ‘what’ and a confused head tilt.”
“Well, I’m not going to use my work name. I’m going to call myself…” Imaginary thought really hard and came up with an answer. Cheerily, he said, “Phil.”
“Good luck!” Past said with a salute and tilted smile. Phil could always count on Past to be hopeful about the future. “Brush up on your acting skills and read the human manual. Last time, when you blew that guy’s mind to shit, you didn’t understand people. I doubt your skills have gotten better since you’ve been on the bench for, you know, centuries. Also, be mindful that the more human you act, the more human you’ll become, so don’t get too far off task. Okay?”
Imaginary didn’t plan on doing either of those things. “Sure.”
“Cheers, my good man,” Future said. No matter what had happened earlier, he always looked forward. “Make us overflow with the waters of your success!”
Present couldn’t let things go even though that was mostly his job, so he said, “See you real soon.”
Eye of the Beholder by MD Grimm
DAIN EYED me as I drove his 1950s Mustang through the streets of Los Angeles, the nightlife in full swing around us. I pretended to ignore him and tried not to rear-end anyone when the stoplight forced everyone to play ride-the-bumper. He rarely let me drive his car, so I did my best to prove he could trust me to do it alone.
“LA is such a skeezy city,” I said as I watched a scantily clad prostitute slide into the car of a horny client.
Hope she didn’t end up like the victims of Jack the Ripper.
Dain snorted. “And you love it as much as I do.”
I smiled at him. “But not for the reasons most people do.”
“What? You didn’t come here to become rich and famous and end up working as waiter at some fancy restaurant?”
I laughed. Jerk. He knew for a fact that wasn’t in my mind when I’d arrived here years ago. LA hadn’t been a destination, merely a stop on my nomadic journey through the States, escaping a life of abuse and fear.
The light turned green, and I inched the car forward.
“You better watch yourself,” Dain said, his tone turning serious. “Don’t get too comfortable with our… clientele.”
I flicked a glance at him before turning on the blinker and bearing right.
“Why are you telling me things I already know? Besides, who says I’m comfortable with the bloodsuckers and furries?”
“I have eyes, kid. You take too long to deliver the packages and sometimes return with gifts from Her Grace.”
I felt my hackles rise and bared my teeth. “You timing me, old man? Whatever happened to making sure our clients are repeat customers? Whatever happened to building relationships? You really think I’m stupid enough to refuse a gift from a vampire duchess?”
“You’re only stupid if you think the gift doesn’t have strings attached. Remember our number one rule: our loyalty can’t be bought. We’re free agents, Vulcan. The vamps don’t own us, and neither do the wolves. Our services can be purchased, but not our lives.”
“Jesus, stop with the lecture! I thought you fucking liked Her Grace.” I gripped the steering wheel painfully, wondering why the old codger was making such a big freaking deal of it all.
“I respect her. There’s a difference.”
“You’re acting like I haven’t lived and worked with you for the past three years!”
“It doesn’t hurt to be reminded of the dangers of what we do and who we do it for. The vampires, the werewolves, and the other supernatural beasts that own the night. The bloodsuckers and furries, as you called them, own this town, kid. Don’t forget it. Also don’t forget the slayers out there who don’t appreciate humans working for their mortal enemies.”
I hunched my shoulders and glared at the cars around us. “I’m not stupid.”
Tense silence filled the car. Even I heard the hurt in my voice through the layers of anger and indignation.
“I know,” Dain said after a long moment.
“Then why are you suddenly lecturing me?”
Dain turned his head to look out the side window. He was an older guy in his sixties, bald, dark as a black jaguar, with stormy gray eyes sharper than most twentysomethings. His hands were scarred and burned from decades working with a hammer and forge, bringing shape and life to lumps of metal. I was in awe of his skill and dedication and his willingness to take me on as his apprentice.
“I won’t be around forever.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as I stopped at another light. I was in front, for once, and gave him my full attention.
“No duh, dude. Wait, you aren’t going to tell me you have cancer or something, right?”
He snorted and rolled his eyes when he looked back at me. “Nothing so melodramatic, kid. I’m just stating the obvious. I won’t be around forever, and I have to think of the future of my business and my property.”
“Well, sure, but—”
I didn’t get any further. The car behind us suddenly rammed into our back bumper at full speed, throwing us into the four-way despite our light still being red. I smashed my foot into the brake, already knowing it was too late. A large semi loomed toward us like a hungry monster, and there was no time for either of us to change course or prevent the inevitable.
The semi smashed into the passenger side, and the force flung me to the right, the seat belt preventing me from falling onto Dain. Screaming metal and rubber were the only things I was conscious of for a time. I didn’t know how long I was blind and deaf, but when I came back to awareness, my vision spun, and my heart thundered over the sounds of sirens. I gradually took stock of myself as my vision settled. I lay mostly on my side, the seat belt digging into my neck. I moved my head hesitantly and realized it lay on Dain’s arm.
“Dain?” I croaked.
Nothing.
“Dain?”
Answer me, dammit!
My fingers trembled and felt swollen to ten times their usual size, but I managed to release the seat belt. I flopped down a couple of inches and groaned as my body protested every movement. Taking careful breaths, I shifted and pushed myself up enough to get a better look at Dain.
Blood. There was so much blood. I touched his arm, squeezed.
“Dain?”
“Sir, can you hear me?”
I turned around and vaguely regarded the man staring at me through a hole where the driver’s door should have been. Funny, I hadn’t even noticed him pry it open, my entire focus on Dain.
“Dain. It’s Dain.” I couldn’t think of anything else. I didn’t want to.
“Sir, let me get you out of here. Come on.”
I shook my head, instantly regretting the movement. I cringed as my neck protested and tightened, and pushed down the nausea.
“No. Dain.” I stretched closer and leaned over to peer at his face. His eyes stared blankly, his mouth slightly open in surprise.
The sound that escaped me belonged to a wounded animal. Even as the rescue worker tried to get my attention, I managed to release Dain’s seat belt, and then I simply tugged him into my arms, blood and all. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything except holding my friend. My father in all the ways that mattered, all the ways that counted.
The only one to truly give a damn about me.
I held his lifeless body and only realized I was crying when it became more and more difficult to breathe. I pressed my face against his stiff shoulder and sobbed.
I vaguely felt the rescue worker touch my shoulder, but he didn’t tug me or try to take Dain away. Despite my many hurts, I would have killed him if he’d tried. More time passed, I couldn’t be sure how much, before a sultry feminine voice penetrated my despair. The French accent gave her away. I lifted my face and turned my head, instantly spotting Her Grace, Josette Jacquier, The Duchess of California.
Transplanted from her native France, Her Grace retained the noble title given to her before the French Revolution of 1789. Since she was the head of LA’s vampire coven, an elder of the covens in America and Canada, and one of the oldest vamps alive, no one had a problem addressing her the way she was accustomed to being addressed.
She was tiny but fierce and had the rescue workers backing away as she approached me. I could only stare, still crying, unable to stop the tears and grief. Her expression was somber as she leaned down and touched my shoulder.
“You need to let him go now, Vulcan. You know you must.”
“No.” I held him tighter.
She cupped my dirty cheek in her cool, smooth hand. “Yes. Let go of him now, Vulcan. Dain is dead.”
I moaned and shuddered. Hearing the words, knowing the truth, was a knife to my heart, to my gut.
Despite her deceptively delicate hands, Her Grace easily pried my arms away from Dain’s body and, with preternatural strength, tugged me fully out of the car. I sat on the pavement as the rescue workers carried Dain’s body out and away. She crouched beside me despite her exquisite dress and ran a hand gently over my short hair.
“I am sorry, my dear.” It sounded like she meant it.
A whimper escaped me. I curled my knees close to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs before burying my face in them.
Dain’s last words resonated in my mind even as Her Grace gently laid an arm across my shoulders. I turned my head and peeked at her. I suspected I was the only one to notice the slight sheen of red in her eyes. Her mouth was slightly open, and the police cruiser lights reflected off her extended fangs.
“Who did this?” I managed to ask. This was no accident. No fucking way.
“Whoever they are, they will feel our wrath.”
Chapter One
Jamie knifed soundlessly through the woods on two legs rather than four. Heart thudding in excitement and fear that his escape might be cut short, he didn’t take chances. He’d left most of the pack at his parents’ den in the forest behind him. They’d stop him if they knew he’d slipped away. They’d already moved heaven and earth to keep him from Ian. They’d track Jamie less readily in his human skin, though. He watched his step to avoid rustling leaves or snapping stray twigs. Now that he’d entered the towering rock and stony juts of granite along the border with Bitter Creek, at least the ground was too stark and sterile to crackle underfoot.
Pulse pounding in his ears, Jamie peered through the shadows of craggy mountainside. He paused to sniff the air though Ian almost certainly had retreated into his human skin to evade the pack as well.
Ian had to be close. Jamie’s nerves wouldn’t jitter as wildly if he wasn’t.
Minding shards of stone that carpeted the pass between Burnt Fork and Bitter Creek, Jamie pushed forward. His muscles burned as the ground sloped stubbornly up.
His best friend, confidant…his everything had to be nearby. Ian had fled to this patch of unforgiving rock since they were boys, any time he needed freedom from the pressures of the pack. Jamie had run there, too. That their parents would have tanned both their backsides for breaching the border with Bitter Creek had hardly mattered. The other pack hadn’t attacked or punished them for playing in the rocks, had they? The rugged pass was populated by vipers and a big cat or two that frightened away game. No one else came here. Which was why, when Jamie had overhead his mother speaking of Ian’s disappearance after they’d been separated, Jamie knew exactly where to meet him.
Days apart had stretched one into another with the weight and crushing emptiness of lifetimes. Jamie had rarely been without Ian, his best friend never far from his side since they’d been pups. How could their parents be so cruel?
Jamie’s hands trembled as he hauled himself up a cluster of boulders. If Ian wasn’t hiding among the rocks, Jamie didn’t know what he’d do. Continue searching. Keep hoping. He’d die before he returned to his parents’ den alone and defeated. A future without Ian’s laughter was that unthinkable.
He nearly jolted out of his bones when a tall shadow sprang from a ledge high above him, the figure landing in a loose crouch inches ahead of Jamie on the trail. Joy lit him up as his frantic gaze took in a familiar dark head, the broad shoulders he knew well bared of a shirt, those long-muscled legs—”Ian!”
“What are you doing here?” He caught Jamie against him when Jamie shot toward him. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I had to find you.” Jamie grinned at Ian’s stunned eyes. “As soon as I realized what was happening.”
“The ripening.” Ian’s lush lips tightened. He glared at Jamie. “You weren’t supposed to answer by ripening too.”
The bottom fell out of Jamie’s stomach. “You—” When his breath caught, freezing the words in his mouth, he shook his head and tried again. “You don’t want me?”
“Want you? Of course, I want you.” Lifting a shaky hand to cradle Jamie’s head in his palm, Ian shuddered. “Why do you think I ran? Your scent on them alone was driving me crazy.”
Jamie soaked up the affection in Ian’s caress, comforted by that if not Ian’s reply. “But why? Why did they separate us? Why did you let them?”
Ian’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re too young.”
“Bullshit.” Foul temper stirring, Jamie jerked away, though not far. His wounded pride won only scant inches. Neither he nor Ian would be able to tolerate even a small distance between them after having been denied touch for days. Not once they each smelled the other’s sweat…and arousal. “If my body ripened in response to yours, I’m mature enough to mate.” Jamie scowled at Ian. “Besides, I’m all of what? Five hours younger than you?”
“Months.” Ian’s mouth quirked. “Five months.” As if he couldn’t stand not holding him close, Ian yanked Jamie against him. “We are both too young then. The earliest mating this pack has seen in a generation.”
“That didn’t stop my mother. Or Da.” Who had mated at fifteen. At least, at sixteen, he and Ian were older than his parents when they’d mated. “Why are you being difficult?”
“It was different for them.” Ian rested his cheek on Jamie’s shoulder. “There are extenuating circumstances for us.”
Jamie stiffened, dread balling his gut. “My mother was wrong.”
“She’s never wrong.”
Jamie looked into Ian’s eyes—sad and sparking with the same fear Jamie had lived with since he sensed his body ripening for his mate. “My heart beat like a war drum before I saw you because your scent is overwhelming,” Jamie said. “Not because you weren’t careful. You were, but I’m attuned to you now. I could track you for miles.” Jamie grabbed Ian’s wrist and spread Ian’s hand, palm down and fingers splayed, over the center of Jamie’s chest. “I’m shaking. You are too. You feel it as fiercely as I do.”
“I’m no alpha wolf.” Ian stared at his hand, fingers curling next to the nub of Jamie’s pert nipple, but he didn’t rip that hand away. “I’m not the mate our seer saw for you.”
The pain of that, the truth in it, shook Jamie to his core, but he stroked Ian’s forearm. “The quickening doesn’t lie. We’ve known we would be together since we were small because the Goddess showed us that we belong to each other. Our physical ripening only confirmed what we’ve felt since we were young.” Fierce wonder and joy flooded him. “We are destined to mate.”
Ian leaned in, pressing against Jamie, both of their hands trapped between them. “Do you think this isn’t killing me? That I don’t want—” His shoulders jerked, a startled but desperate laugh tearing from him. “Everything! I want everything and I want it with you.” He skated a kiss over Jamie’s temple. “I’ve loved you since the moment you were born.”
“Every minute of every hour of every day,” Jamie vowed, wallowing in this as he never could have before. Not while the pack seer—his mother—had sworn Jamie would mate with the next alpha. He wasn’t allowed to have these feelings for Ian because, according to prophecy, Jamie was fated for another. “Don’t you see? We can be together now. You ripened and my wolf answered by rising within me. You sensed it first, but without you these past days, my ripening intensified. None can deny it, not even my mother: we are fated.”
“I knew it since we were boys. No ripening need ever tell me what I felt plainly in my bones.” Ian rubbed his cheek over Jamie’s. “My destiny is you,” he said, voice breaking. “It’s always been you.”
Grief shredded Jamie, the pain still fresh and bleeding. “Then why?” he asked around the knot of hurt lodged in his throat. “Why did you run? Why let them separate us?”
“Doesn’t matter anymore.” Ian freed his trapped hands only to wrap his arms around Jamie who sighed blissfully at the press of Ian’s skin against his own. “I’m not strong enough to let you go again.” Ian’s beloved dark eyes deepened like the shadowy corners of this forbidding and forbidden mountain pass. “Come with me?”
“Anywhere,” Jamie answered and meant it.
Ian didn’t lead him far. Jamie knew he wouldn’t. He’d explored the narrow paths made from jutting stone alongside Ian since they were boys. They both knew the way. Their sanctuary wasn’t a cave. These hills had none, the rock dense and impenetrable. Instead, boulders and shards of granite assembled in tumbling formations that left tunnel-like gaps and hidden enclosures. Ian and Jamie had claimed one of these crevices as their own years ago, furtively dragging a tattered blanket and other supplies as they could. Not food. They couldn’t risk attracting the mountain cats that hunted the high peaks, but they enjoyed all the other comforts boys who had grown to young men could desire, including wood for the tiny campfire Ian immediately set to light. A sheet of rock had fallen in one corner of the cramped space to provide crude shelter and a storage area protected by the elements for the few items they’d secreted there, but otherwise, the reds and yellows of the setting sun painted the sky above them. As boys, the rock walls had felt spacious, a luxury, but neither Jamie nor Ian had grown small or runty. Even without trying, they rubbed shoulders these days.
“The smoke will dissipate in the rocks,” Ian said, jabbing at the kindling with a stick. “No one on either side of the border will notice us.”
That Ian mentioned the risk of discovery that the fire represented, which they’d known was safe since they were both ten, told Jamie that Ian was as nervous as he was. Maybe more. The man he’d loved these many years still smiled into the campfire, his rangy body coiled in a bunch of lean muscle and golden skin, but his shoulders squared, tension defining his strong legs and torso. Jamie licked his lips, anticipation humming through him, but he still turned to fumble with the threadbare quilt that would cushion their mating den, nonplussed for a moment to realize his mother had provided their bed by discarding the precious though worn fabric many, many summers ago.
He jumped at Ian’s grip on his arm, which ended Jamie’s skittish fussing. “We don’t have to do anything.” Ian had circled the fire while Jamie had been distracted and stood behind Jamie now, Ian’s breath hot on Jamie’s neck. “If we ripened for each other once under the sway of the moon, we’ll ripen again for the next full moon.”
“We may never get another chance.” Jamie quivered. “They’ll part us if we don’t mate.” He stared at their makeshift bed. “Anything to fulfill their cursed prophecy.”
“The prophecy is yours, not theirs.” Ian’s grasp transitioned from holding Jamie fast to a caress that heated Jamie’s blood. Ian’s fingers traced the pulse throbbing at Jamie’s wrist. “And it’s no curse.”
“Isn’t it?” Jamie swallowed around the lump in his throat, his wild fear and uncertainty gnawing at him with razor-sharp teeth despite the sweet allure of Ian’s touch. “How could you still want me, knowing…” He trailed off, unable to voice the betrayal his mother’s prediction had implied.
Ian released Jamie, only to envelop him in strong arms and nudge him around to face him. “No, Jamie. It’s not a curse.” When Jamie buried his nose in the crook of Ian’s neck, Ian lifted a hand to nudge Jamie’s chin and Jamie’s anxious gaze rose to meet Ian’s. The steadfast resolve that glittered in Ian’s stare melted Jamie’s trepidation. “What the seer saw for you is a blessing. I know you’ll be all right, no matter what.”
Jamie had no such assurances. “But Ian—”
“Do you love me?”
Everything Jamie knew of love, Ian had taught him and before the night was over, Ian and Jamie both would learn still more. “I’ve loved you so long, I know nothing else. I never want to.”
One corner of Ian’s sly mouth tipped up. Enough for Jamie’s stomach to flip because, together since pups, he could read his friend like a book. Ian’s helpless moue reflected Ian’s grim acceptance that Jamie wouldn’t be allowed the luxury of knowing only the love of a single mate, but before Jamie could form his instant protest, Ian angled his jaw and brought their mouths together.
Jamie trembled anew.
Glorious. Ian’s kiss amazed Jamie, the softness of lips Jamie had only dreamed of sampling a dizzy wonder to him. Ian didn’t open his mouth. Though Jamie welcomed him, Ian didn’t slide his tongue inside as Jamie needed. Still, Jamie tasted salt and copper, the game upon which Ian had feasted in his absence from the pack’s guard. His scent had intoxicated Jamie since Ian’s ripening had begun, earthy sweat mixed with the tang of fresh pine that surrounded his family’s den and cornflower that thrived in abundance throughout Burnt Fork. More than that, though. He smelled of spices Jamie had never sniffed before that made him yearn. The wafting savor of Ian had maddened him before, when only traces of Ian’s scent had clung to other pack members. This close? Jamie was enthralled by him. He steeped his senses recklessly and fully in the fragrance of his mate while Ian frustratingly gentled him with this, their first kiss.
Jamie growled.
Ian chuckled. “Patience.”
“I want you.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry to prove our parents wrong.” Ian nipped at Jamie’s tingling lower lip. “We’ll only seal the bond once. I need to…” He bit down harder, the small jab of pain wringing a moan from Jamie. “…wallow in you. In us.”
“I wasn’t thinking of our parents or the pack.” Jamie’s senses zinged riotously at the brush of their lips. “I wasn’t thinking at all.”
“Good.” Ian lapped at Jamie’s mouth, setting Jamie on fire with arousal and consuming need. Ian dragged his fingertips up the bumps of Jamie’s spine. When Jamie trembled, Ian returned to tormenting Jamie’s mouth, his tongue tasting Jamie’s lips and his sharp teeth making him sensitive. Jamie ached. “Perfect.”
Maybe. What Ian did to him certainly enraptured him, as though his best friend had found in their days apart some raw and feral magic in the rocky crags to bewitch and bewilder him. Jamie needed more. “Kiss me?”
“I am.” Smiling, Ian slid his tongue inside the eager welcome of Jamie’s mouth, anyway. Jamie felt the slow dance of Ian’s possession from the soles of his feet to the tips of his hair, into the marrow of his bones. “Say it,” Ian ordered him, then kissed Jamie into silence as though Ian couldn’t resist the slide of their twining tongues, either. “Say it,” he tried again, his breath coming faster.
Jamie shot his fingers into Ian’s hair, urging his mouth closer. “I want you,” he complained when Ian refused him.
“I want you too, more than anything.” Ian groaned at Jamie’s answering snarl of desire. “Tell me. I need to hear it.”
Realization finally dawned inside Jamie and his tugging fingers gentled. Rather than demanding, Jamie soothed. Because Ian, deep down, was as scared as Jamie was. Jamie couldn’t stop the flood of tenderness that filled him for his mate, didn’t even try. “I love you, Ian.” As soon as he gave Ian what he’d asked, tension poured from Ian’s body, flush against Jamie’s, in a rush of loosening muscle and helpless shivers. “My heart is yours. My body is yours. Into your care, I give everything I am and ever will be.”
“As I receive, I gift unto you,” Ian responded. Jamie felt Ian’s heart, crashing violently against his ribcage, pounding against Jamie’s skin. “Forever, my love.”
Jamie fingered Ian’s hair, dark as sin, rich and silky. The words of the vow fell from his lips with unsurprising ease. “Forever, my life and the work of my hands.”
Ian shook, his grasp on Jamie like iron bands. “Forever, my spirit.”
“By the fruit of our bodies, we two become one,” they recited in unison, Jamie staring into Ian’s wide unblinking eyes. “This, I pledge as my eternal troth.”
They were just words. Ancient promises, but only words nonetheless. Jamie’s mother and Mack, their pack trainer, had repeatedly drilled into each pup and maturing whelp that the words meant nothing without the quickening that identified mates and the physical ripening that proved the blessing of the Goddess. The vow was meaningless without the pure intent of their hearts. Pack elders like his mother swore there was no magic in the words themselves.
They were wrong.
Every wonder and dazzling perplexity of the power held in check by the wolf inside Jamie screamed to urgent attention. His hearing sharpened, the riot of sounds from the scritching crawl of insects across gritty rock to birdsong in the woods beyond the pass a ringing clamor in his ears. The dimming light of the setting sun brightened with an explosion of color and only now could Jamie see and appreciate flecks of secret obsidian in the midnight of Ian’s eyes. Scent, too, swamped him, Ian’s smell but also his own, the two scents mixing until neither was distinguishable independent of the other.
Words were the oldest magic.
As was touch.
Wherever Jamie pressed against Ian tingled as senses dormant within Jamie awakened to greet his mate. His blood seemed to flow hotter but oddly thicker in his veins. The tickle of Ian’s chest hair beaded Jamie’s nipples. Even the blending of their sweat was an enchanting bouquet to him. “Ian?”
Chest heaving, Ian scraped his cheek across Jamie’s, nuzzling him in dazed but affectionate awe. “I feel it too.”
A trill of fear sprinted through Jamie the fraction of a second his heartbeat took to synchronize with Ian’s, with his mate’s. Then it was done. He sensed Ian’s joy as readily as his own, shared his astonishment. The love that had unfurled in Jamie as he’d ripened for his mate flowed into Ian and returned, carrying the promise of Ian’s love for him as well. The vow hadn’t lied. Together, they were stronger and steadier.
Their mating hadn’t required the loss of virginity and spilling semen, nor the exchange of bites. Jamie craved Ian inside him more than ever, longed for his mate’s teeth in his shoulder or mayhap his nape. That wasn’t strictly necessary, though. Their vow alone had united them. They were one.
Because Ian was as intimate in his heart and mind as Jamie’s own soul, burning wet gathered in Jamie’s eyes. His horror, anticipatory pain, and grief strengthened his grip on Ian who was and had always been the center of his world. “What are we going to do?” Jamie asked when he could breathe again.
The fire crackled quietly behind Ian. The distant birds twittered, as though already joining in their future sorrow.
Ian pushed Jamie down to the worn blanket of their mating bed, settling his hips between Jamie’s spread thighs. He braced on his elbows above Jamie and smiled at him. “What will we do? Love each other.” Ian bent down. His kiss rocked Jamie, the chaotic tumult of what Ian had guessed drowning in the beauty of what they created together. Ian’s devotion, his ardor and adoration of Jamie was a balm to Jamie’s wounded heart, but Ian also inflamed him. The silky hardness of Ian’s cock settling against Jamie’s groin stirred him, reigniting the passion that terrified grief could not tear asunder, not when Ian was warm and alive in Jamie’s arms, not while Ian was still Jamie’s to treasure. “Love me,” Ian said, grinding his hips into Jamie’s. Their cocks brushed and Jamie gritted his teeth, though he could not smother his moan. “Just love me.”
“Forever,” Jamie swore and arched his back to thrust his hips too, pleased when Ian groaned out his pleasure and need.
“Today,” Ian corrected on a harsh pant. “I may not have tomorrow. Love me today.”
“For as long as I can.”
Even as they writhed together, Ian pulling Jamie’s orgasm from him—the first of many—and spilling across Jamie’s stomach, before either of them had the presence of mind to exchange bites marking them as mates, and later, after Ian had thrust inside Jamie and Ian had accepted Jamie into his body too, even then, Jamie knew it wouldn’t be enough.
They’d mated with an intensity that could never be denied as anything less than fate, no matter the doomed foolishness of their families and the pack that had struggled to keep them apart.
For Ian, though, the clock ticked.
Just in Time by Jacqueline Rohrbach
Chapter One
The stage was set for Evan to have a life-changing epiphany. Smoke drifted across the graveyard, tangling itself around the crumbling tombstones. Most of the markers had faded through the years. Evan could make out the occasional Smith, or maybe that was only his mind filling in the blanks by putting common names over eroded canvases.
He bent next to the nearest one and wiped his hand across the bumpy surface. A coat of fine, almost silky, white powder clung to his fingers afterward. He’d known he’d get that result with no clear answers to show for the mess. Still, he was annoyed when he stood and cleaned off the dust using the untucked side of his shirt. Life was mostly like that for him. He knew what was going to happen before it did, but it didn’t stop him from feeling disappointed.
“Okay, get on with it, Johnny Bones for Fingers,” he told the newest ghost to visit him that night. There’d been two before him: the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas Present. Fed up with their nagging criticisms, and going on very little sleep, he snapped, “Make your bloody point. I need to shit and this place fucking sucks.”
There was a long pause before the Ghost of Christmas Past said, “And this lonely grave is yours, Evan,” in his deepest, scariest voice. His bony fingers wiggled above the exposed plot.
“Smooth recovery,” Evan said and shrugged.
“You died alone. No one to mourn you.”
Evan shrugged again. “Sounds about right.”
“You were unloved.”
“It’s a cruel world.”
“Even your family scorned you.”
“Right back at them.” Except for his mom, Evan amended silently. At one point, he would have put his sister on that list, but she’d shown herself to be as materialistic and heartless as their other siblings after their mother died.
“This is your last warning!” Past’s ominous voice boomed. The echo of it reverberated in Evan’s stomach, morphing his bowels into an uncomfortable churning sludge. No matter how ridiculous, the future was always scary. But it didn’t change his mind or heart.
“Tell you what, I’ll get cremated,” Evan said. “Putting that in my living will as soon as you dump me back off at my bedroom.”
Puffs of black smoke coiled around the robed figure. The ghost vanished along with the archetypical cemetery. The familiar surroundings of his bedroom and the musky scent of himself greeted Evan when he blinked open his eyes.
Evan got up from the bed. Although he was only in his early twenties, he had old bones. He swore he felt his back creak in protest. A slit of sunlight peeked through the curtains, cutting a peephole into his life. Evan drew them tightly together until he and the rest of the world felt like two separate things.
He didn’t need anyone. Not in the past, not in the present, not in the future.
“That guy is an irredeemable wanker,” The Ghost of Christmas Present griped.
“I’ve met serial-killing clowns I’d like to spend more time with,” The Ghost of Christmas Past agreed.
“The world is a darker, desolate place with him dwelling in its recesses. He festers like a tooth with an abscess, rotted beneath the glossy enamel.”
“Cut the emo shit, Future. Just say he’s a damn wanker,” Past said.
Future sniffled at Past’s slight and drew a dark hood up around his face to sulk. Through it, he mumbled, “Philistines. No talent for drama.”
The Ghost of Imaginary Time listened to the other ghosts quibble about the human, some delightful sounding chap named Evan Ezear. They’d been tasked to cure him of his misanthropy. Imaginary had been on the bench since he could remember, waiting for his turn to charm someone into re-embracing humanity. It sounded like this fellow might be his ticket back into the big game.
“Guys, maybe I can give it a crack?”
Present scoffed. “What are you going to do, Imaginary? You don’t understand people and people don’t understand you. Perhaps you could confuse him until he reforms?”
The Ghost of Imaginary Time loved the absurdity of the statement and embraced it close to his chest, holding it dear. Grinning, he cocked his eyebrow and said, “Maybe.”
“Well, you’ve never worked,” Present said. “No one has ever understood your gimmick. What is it, anyway?”
Imaginary wanted to say, I teach them to live with you three assholes, but he wanted to get his way more, so he plastered a smile on his face. “Embrace who you are. Understand that you know nothing!”
“Don’t you remember what happened to the last poor chap?” Future asked.
Imaginary did remember. “The last guy had a meltdown. Which was sort of like an epiphany…” Imaginary stuck one finger up in the air as if to hold up his tenuous argument.
“He ended up in an asylum,” Past reminded him. Not meanly, only matter-of-fact.
“Where he had several more epiphanies,” Imaginary said.
“Because you blew his mind to shit,” Past retorted. “To utter fucking shit. Ka-blooey.”
Behind Past, the other two ghosts nodded in agreement. Always an asshole, Present went the additional step of giving Imaginary’s supposed stupidity a slow blink and a pointed lip smack.
“Well, he talks funny,” Imaginary said, jabbing his thumb toward Future. “Like the Ghost of Christmas Thesaurus, amiright? What human can even figure out what he’s getting at? He always ends up pointing at their sad-looking grave in some hackneyed cemetery he conjured from a Dicken’s novel. The world is more modern now, Future. There are automatic sprinklers. The guy with the overgrown weeds and open graves isn’t in business anymore.”
“Scurrilous!” Future bellowed and banged his bony hands on the table. The result was more of a clatter, but Imaginary reacted as though the gesture had its intended effect and recoiled. Future loved to grandstand and playing along could grease the wheels.
“Don’t be a wanker,” Past said. “We’re all the same here.”
“My bad. You’re right,” Imaginary said. To Future, he added, “Hey, I’m sorry, buddy. You run a good game.”
Future sniffled in his practiced dignified way. “I say there’s no harm in giving it a shot. We can at least let Imaginary endeavor to transform this cur’s heart into something unblemished.”
Imaginary beamed. “Thanks!” He turned to Present and said, “Come on, buddy, give me a shot.”
Present flipped a dismissive hand in the air and said, “Fine. Whatever. Tell you what, I’ll even give you until Christmas. Just don’t send him to the loony bin.”
Imaginary tried to conceal his excitement. After several moments of flapping his hands and screaming, “Oh my god, Oh my god, finally, oh my god,” he took a deep breath and said, “Okay, what’s his deal, Past?”
“He just hates people.”
“That’s it? He doesn’t have some tragic backstory?”
“Well, his mother died of cancer.”
“That’s something!” Imaginary said, making a mental note.
“Everyone’s mother dies,” Past said. “Most people don’t become bitter pricks about it.”
“True. Anything else?”
Past thought for a moment, then held up his index finger when something came to him. “He had a lot of crazy friends who always had strange issues that needed solving. For example, some guy once put three weasels into Evan’s bathtub.”
“What for?”
“You know, I couldn’t really figure it out. I think his friend just might have been an asshole.”
Sometimes the past wasn’t as complex as people wanted to make it, so Imaginary accepted the answer without pause.
In that space of time, Present asked, “What are you going to call yourself? Your name immediately invites a ‘what’ and a confused head tilt.”
“Well, I’m not going to use my work name. I’m going to call myself…” Imaginary thought really hard and came up with an answer. Cheerily, he said, “Phil.”
“Good luck!” Past said with a salute and tilted smile. Phil could always count on Past to be hopeful about the future. “Brush up on your acting skills and read the human manual. Last time, when you blew that guy’s mind to shit, you didn’t understand people. I doubt your skills have gotten better since you’ve been on the bench for, you know, centuries. Also, be mindful that the more human you act, the more human you’ll become, so don’t get too far off task. Okay?”
Imaginary didn’t plan on doing either of those things. “Sure.”
“Cheers, my good man,” Future said. No matter what had happened earlier, he always looked forward. “Make us overflow with the waters of your success!”
Present couldn’t let things go even though that was mostly his job, so he said, “See you real soon.”
Eye of the Beholder by MD Grimm
DAIN EYED me as I drove his 1950s Mustang through the streets of Los Angeles, the nightlife in full swing around us. I pretended to ignore him and tried not to rear-end anyone when the stoplight forced everyone to play ride-the-bumper. He rarely let me drive his car, so I did my best to prove he could trust me to do it alone.
“LA is such a skeezy city,” I said as I watched a scantily clad prostitute slide into the car of a horny client.
Hope she didn’t end up like the victims of Jack the Ripper.
Dain snorted. “And you love it as much as I do.”
I smiled at him. “But not for the reasons most people do.”
“What? You didn’t come here to become rich and famous and end up working as waiter at some fancy restaurant?”
I laughed. Jerk. He knew for a fact that wasn’t in my mind when I’d arrived here years ago. LA hadn’t been a destination, merely a stop on my nomadic journey through the States, escaping a life of abuse and fear.
The light turned green, and I inched the car forward.
“You better watch yourself,” Dain said, his tone turning serious. “Don’t get too comfortable with our… clientele.”
I flicked a glance at him before turning on the blinker and bearing right.
“Why are you telling me things I already know? Besides, who says I’m comfortable with the bloodsuckers and furries?”
“I have eyes, kid. You take too long to deliver the packages and sometimes return with gifts from Her Grace.”
I felt my hackles rise and bared my teeth. “You timing me, old man? Whatever happened to making sure our clients are repeat customers? Whatever happened to building relationships? You really think I’m stupid enough to refuse a gift from a vampire duchess?”
“You’re only stupid if you think the gift doesn’t have strings attached. Remember our number one rule: our loyalty can’t be bought. We’re free agents, Vulcan. The vamps don’t own us, and neither do the wolves. Our services can be purchased, but not our lives.”
“Jesus, stop with the lecture! I thought you fucking liked Her Grace.” I gripped the steering wheel painfully, wondering why the old codger was making such a big freaking deal of it all.
“I respect her. There’s a difference.”
“You’re acting like I haven’t lived and worked with you for the past three years!”
“It doesn’t hurt to be reminded of the dangers of what we do and who we do it for. The vampires, the werewolves, and the other supernatural beasts that own the night. The bloodsuckers and furries, as you called them, own this town, kid. Don’t forget it. Also don’t forget the slayers out there who don’t appreciate humans working for their mortal enemies.”
I hunched my shoulders and glared at the cars around us. “I’m not stupid.”
Tense silence filled the car. Even I heard the hurt in my voice through the layers of anger and indignation.
“I know,” Dain said after a long moment.
“Then why are you suddenly lecturing me?”
Dain turned his head to look out the side window. He was an older guy in his sixties, bald, dark as a black jaguar, with stormy gray eyes sharper than most twentysomethings. His hands were scarred and burned from decades working with a hammer and forge, bringing shape and life to lumps of metal. I was in awe of his skill and dedication and his willingness to take me on as his apprentice.
“I won’t be around forever.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as I stopped at another light. I was in front, for once, and gave him my full attention.
“No duh, dude. Wait, you aren’t going to tell me you have cancer or something, right?”
He snorted and rolled his eyes when he looked back at me. “Nothing so melodramatic, kid. I’m just stating the obvious. I won’t be around forever, and I have to think of the future of my business and my property.”
“Well, sure, but—”
I didn’t get any further. The car behind us suddenly rammed into our back bumper at full speed, throwing us into the four-way despite our light still being red. I smashed my foot into the brake, already knowing it was too late. A large semi loomed toward us like a hungry monster, and there was no time for either of us to change course or prevent the inevitable.
The semi smashed into the passenger side, and the force flung me to the right, the seat belt preventing me from falling onto Dain. Screaming metal and rubber were the only things I was conscious of for a time. I didn’t know how long I was blind and deaf, but when I came back to awareness, my vision spun, and my heart thundered over the sounds of sirens. I gradually took stock of myself as my vision settled. I lay mostly on my side, the seat belt digging into my neck. I moved my head hesitantly and realized it lay on Dain’s arm.
“Dain?” I croaked.
Nothing.
“Dain?”
Answer me, dammit!
My fingers trembled and felt swollen to ten times their usual size, but I managed to release the seat belt. I flopped down a couple of inches and groaned as my body protested every movement. Taking careful breaths, I shifted and pushed myself up enough to get a better look at Dain.
Blood. There was so much blood. I touched his arm, squeezed.
“Dain?”
“Sir, can you hear me?”
I turned around and vaguely regarded the man staring at me through a hole where the driver’s door should have been. Funny, I hadn’t even noticed him pry it open, my entire focus on Dain.
“Dain. It’s Dain.” I couldn’t think of anything else. I didn’t want to.
“Sir, let me get you out of here. Come on.”
I shook my head, instantly regretting the movement. I cringed as my neck protested and tightened, and pushed down the nausea.
“No. Dain.” I stretched closer and leaned over to peer at his face. His eyes stared blankly, his mouth slightly open in surprise.
The sound that escaped me belonged to a wounded animal. Even as the rescue worker tried to get my attention, I managed to release Dain’s seat belt, and then I simply tugged him into my arms, blood and all. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything except holding my friend. My father in all the ways that mattered, all the ways that counted.
The only one to truly give a damn about me.
I held his lifeless body and only realized I was crying when it became more and more difficult to breathe. I pressed my face against his stiff shoulder and sobbed.
I vaguely felt the rescue worker touch my shoulder, but he didn’t tug me or try to take Dain away. Despite my many hurts, I would have killed him if he’d tried. More time passed, I couldn’t be sure how much, before a sultry feminine voice penetrated my despair. The French accent gave her away. I lifted my face and turned my head, instantly spotting Her Grace, Josette Jacquier, The Duchess of California.
Transplanted from her native France, Her Grace retained the noble title given to her before the French Revolution of 1789. Since she was the head of LA’s vampire coven, an elder of the covens in America and Canada, and one of the oldest vamps alive, no one had a problem addressing her the way she was accustomed to being addressed.
She was tiny but fierce and had the rescue workers backing away as she approached me. I could only stare, still crying, unable to stop the tears and grief. Her expression was somber as she leaned down and touched my shoulder.
“You need to let him go now, Vulcan. You know you must.”
“No.” I held him tighter.
She cupped my dirty cheek in her cool, smooth hand. “Yes. Let go of him now, Vulcan. Dain is dead.”
I moaned and shuddered. Hearing the words, knowing the truth, was a knife to my heart, to my gut.
Despite her deceptively delicate hands, Her Grace easily pried my arms away from Dain’s body and, with preternatural strength, tugged me fully out of the car. I sat on the pavement as the rescue workers carried Dain’s body out and away. She crouched beside me despite her exquisite dress and ran a hand gently over my short hair.
“I am sorry, my dear.” It sounded like she meant it.
A whimper escaped me. I curled my knees close to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs before burying my face in them.
Dain’s last words resonated in my mind even as Her Grace gently laid an arm across my shoulders. I turned my head and peeked at her. I suspected I was the only one to notice the slight sheen of red in her eyes. Her mouth was slightly open, and the police cruiser lights reflected off her extended fangs.
“Who did this?” I managed to ask. This was no accident. No fucking way.
“Whoever they are, they will feel our wrath.”
BL Maxwell grew up in a small town listening to her grandfather spin tales about his childhood. Later she became an avid reader and after a certain vampire series she became obsessed with fanfiction. She soon discovered Slash fanfiction and later discovered the MM genre and was hooked.
Many years later, she decided to take the plunge and write down some of the stories that seem to run through her head late at night when she’s trying to sleep.
Kari Gregg lives in the mountains of Wild and Wonderful West Virginia with her Wonderful husband and three very Wild children. When Kari’s not writing, she enjoys reading, coffee, zombie flicks, coffee, naked mud-wrestling (not really), and . . . coffee!
Jacqueline Rohrbach is a 36-year-old creative writer living in windy central Washington. When she isn’t writing strange books about bloodsucking magical werewolves, she’s baking sweets, or walking her two dogs, Nibbler and Mulder. She also loves cheesy ghost shows, especially when the hosts call out the ghost out like he wants to brawl with it in a bar. You know, “Come out here, you coward! You like to haunt little kids. Haunt me!” Jackee laughs at this EVERY time.
She’s also a hopeless World of Warcraft addict. In her heyday, she was a top parsing disc priest. She became a paladin to fight Deathwing, she went back to a priest to cuddle pandas, and then she went to a shaman because I guess she thought it would be fun to spend an entire expansion underpowered and frustrated. Boomchicken for Legion!
I've wanted to write since I was in the second grade and never gave up that dream. My parents were very supportive, and their only requested that I go to college and get a decent job while pursuing my dream. That really wasn't too much to ask. I didn't start actively writing until I was a senior in high school. Those few stories were awful. Truly awful. But they were supposed to be. I was still learning, growing, accumulating. I still am, in many ways, but college helped me put my stories together, and to learn how to tell a story. Also, reading everything I could get my hands on didn't hurt. I'm still growing and learning and hope to continue to become better and better at writing.
Hannah Walker is a full-time mum to two gorgeous teenage sons, and shares her home with both them, and a very supportive husband. They have always encouraged her to follow her dreams.
She has always loved books from her childhood years reading alongside her father, inheriting his love of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. She has combined this with her love of MM romance to write her series Avanti Chronicles. She loves writing about a complex world where the men love, and live, hard.
Welcome to the world of MM Sci-Fi.
BL Maxwell
Kari Gregg
Ghost Hunted by BL Maxwell
Two Fates by Kari Gregg
Just in Time by Jacqueline Rohrbach
Eye of the Beholder by MD Grimm
Booker's Song by Hannah Walker
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